Baby Videos Not Creating Any Geniuses

The University of Washington TV team was at it again today reporting those baby videos aren’t helping your infant and may be holding him back.

The team found that those popular Baby Einstein, Brainy Baby and similar videos may hinder vocabulary development in babies age 8 to 16 months. I offer the details in my story Videos Won’t Make Baby Smart.

I couldn’t squeeze everything into the ever-shrinking news hole of the modern newspaper, so here are a few other interesting notes.

Co-author Andrew Meltzoff basically locked himself in a room at his Queen Anne house and watched the most popular baby DVDs for 15 hours. His conclusions were less than encouraging.

“I was very surprised and discouraged to find out they do not have the type of language on those DVD that we know babies use to learn language,” Meltzoff said in an interview. “What they have is lava lamps and swirling geometric patterns and (visual) attention getting things.”

Our UW TV team also offered some good tips for parents, including:

- Be skeptical of the educational value and claims of these baby DVDs. Apparently there is no scientific data the programs help baby.

- Playing with three dimensional objects and interacting with your kids is better for them than a flat screen.

- Don’t panic. Babies are resilient, and there isn’t evidence these videos do lasting damage.

This is the third report in a year from this team, and I get the sense these academics are not TV extremists, ready to shot all boob tubes in sight. Instead, I think they watch a little tube themselves, but worry about all the time youth waste in front of electronic screens.

Like so many parenting challenges it’s all about balance. Like yours truly, Seattle parent Cathy Wallach told me she was caught between two worlds. Little television for the kids, but plenty after the rugrats are in bed.